I recently found a picture of my roommate and great friend, Jeri, and myself that was taken in 1976. Or maybe 1977. We were either at the beach or we had just come home. Our faces were peeling and we looked quite ugly. So, what do you do when you are looking ugly? Of course, you put “scarf on head” and head to the mall. We headed right to the photo booth to capture our beauty for all to see. We looked like lepers. I bet neither of us knew that 30+ years later, one of us would be posting our mugs on facebook.

The “scarf on head” look was very popular on our college campus during the 1970’s. I’m pretty sure that it was like that everywhere. We didn’t wear silky scarves. That would have been silly. And we didn’t tie them in front like a babushka. That was saved for Russian women and Queen Elizabeth.

I really should have a full head of gray hairs. I probably do, but thanks to Clairol #whatever, I am keeping the gray away. But, one of these days, I am going to wake up to white hair that no dye or shoe polish will be able to cover. It’s either that or a stroke.

I think it goes back to when I really wouldn’t let my kids climb to the top of the really high sliding board. I would stand there and picture them waving at me from the top, “Watch, mommy!” and as they wave their little wave, lose their grasp and fall backwards to the ground and explode. I could create scenarios in my head one after the other. My cause and effect machine was working overtime. I had one hell of an imagination.

Fast forward to their college years. They were both at WVU, about 30 minutes up the road from our home. That was just far enough away, but close in case we had to get their fast. We took homemade soup when they were sick and drove them home when they needed extra pampering. But, nothing prepares parents for the news that they both want to study abroad.

“You mean, like Canada, right?” I could only hope. Canada was a great country. They could learn all about their culture, such as hockey, curling, Canadian bacon, and could come home, saying, “Eh, dontcha knowl.” That sounded great. They just looked at me.

So, off they went. The first summer, Adam went to Strasburg, France for a month. He flew by himself. Why the hell he didn’t travel with the rest of the WVU students and teacher is beyond me. He was also the only one who rented a bicycle and toured the countryside while he was there. I didn’t want him to ride a bike, because I would probably get a phone call, in French, “Madam, do you have zee son named Adam, with zee red hair, smashed under car..we send him home in a box, oui.”

After he came back, Alex went to Santander, Spain with a WVU Spanish group. Nothing is worse than two weeks of crying on the other end of the phone. She hated it. She said there is nothing worse than “forced admiration.” She said that being part of a tour group is horrible. She wanted to go off by herself and see the sights that she wanted to. I pictured getting that phone call. “Senora, Alexandra was at the end of the tour group line, when someone must have abducted her.. All that was left was her camera. We will send that home to you…in a box..Ole”

This is awful but I was sitting home, saying to myself, “2 down, 2 to go.” I still had 2 more study abroad experiences to live through, and I wasn’t even leaving my home. I was exhasusted. Adam went to Morocco for 4 months. Luckily for me, WVU had asked him to blog every day and his blogs were entertaining and scary. I think that is when I started going gray. He traveled in an old, small plane from Casablanca and could see the runway as they landed, bouncing down the runway. He climbed the second highest mountain in Africa and I had him frozen like Jack Nicholson in the Shining. He wrote about how he and a friend from Italy rode horses bareback through the woods. Whaat? On tv, people who race horses through the woods always catch their neck on a low tree branch. That always happens.

When he came home, Alex went to Guanajuato, Mexico. She loves Mexico. I didn’t. She said that they don’t have screens in their windows and she would wake up with bug bites all over her body. Her roommate was stung by a scorpion that was on the dresser handle. Gray hair….She joined a Mexican ultimate frisbee team and traveled 6 hours on a bus by herself to Mexico City,then traveled in a van with frisbee players she never met before. She didn’t tell me until much later that their van was hit broadside by a truck. We sent Adam down during his spring break because she was so sick, we thought he was going to have to bring her home. After several trips to a hospital, she recovered and they were able to ride horses up to a volcano. Horses? Volcano? Deathly ill? Scorpions? Open windows for rapists and questionable flying bugs? I was a mess for those 5 months. She, meanwhile, took private salsa lessons and had a blast. I never left my home and thought about drinking heavily.

I thought I would be done worrying while they traipsed around the world, having fun.

Adam in the Alps

But no, they weren’t done driving me crazy. Adam climbed part of the Matterhorn and drove a compact car around the Alps one summer. Alex worked for the Japanese embassy and the JET program for a year and was placed in Kobe, you know, the place that had the devastating earthquake. And yes, there was an earthquake while she was there. Seems that Japan has earthquakes somewhere almost every day.

She flew to Korea for a long weekend, so I had her accidentally stepping into North Korea. “Hello, Alex mom? She in North Korea. Not good. Must be spy. Never coming home. Goodbye.”

And today, I have spent the whole day in tears. Alex went to teach in France. So, of course she was up in the Eiffel Tower several weeks ago when they evacuated it because of terror plots. She flew to Japan last week to see her boyfriend and she was supposed to be back last night. No word from Alex. No word all day today. I saw on CNN where South Korea was cracking down on airport security because of a supposed bomb on planes. She had a 2 hour lay over in Seoul. So, that had to mean her plane had a bomb on it. I was ready to call the airlines, because I was sure her plane disappeared over the Meditteranean Triangle, or a taxi driver abducted her. When we finally talked on skype, she told me that she was sitting at the train station in Paris, when security people came and asked her row of 6 people to please leave the area. Next thing you know 300 people were evacuated and they taped off the area where Alex had been sitting. She went to a cafe after seeing a friend from Moscow (probably the bomber) and they heard a loud boom and they ran outside. She said she never heard what had happened, but that her train had left on time.

We went out a lot in college. It seems like we went to the Pub on Wednesdays, and then the Cabaret on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. We loved to dance. Disco was where it was at. Sometimes we drove a pretty far distance to go to another club, just to change it up every once in a while. But,sometimes it is good to stay with what you know. My roommate, Pat, found that out one night, in a bar, in another town …..in the Twilight Zone.

There were about 10 of us who went to a disco about an hour away from us. I believe it was mostly girls in my sorority, Sigma Sigma Sigma. I do remember we were dressed up. We were dressed to impress. I can not remember the name of the club at all, but I can still picture the table where we were sitting.

I thought I looked pretty good. I had my blonde hair flipped back on the sides, ala Farrah Fawcett, skinny jeans with high heels and I was ready to dance. My roommate, Pat, sat beside me. Pat couldn’t care less if a guy asked her to dance or not. She just went with the flow. She had these gorgeous blue eyes and short dark hair. She was tall and thin and smoked like a fiend. She had this way of inhaling a cigarette that made me want to mock her. The more she quietly drank, the more her hair fell into her eyes. She was a lot of fun to be with. Years later she was a bridesmaid in my wedding.

So, here we are at this new disco, and we were listening to the band, having a few drinks and laughing, and looking around for some nice looking guys to dance with. I spotted this guy standing across the room and smiled at him. I guess I wasn’t the only one at the table who threw him a smile. So, we started talking about this guy. “I hope he comes over and asks me to dance.” a sorority sister said. So, we started teasing each other about who was going to get to dance with him first, basically fighting over someone who seemed content standing against the wall, across the room. Meanwhile, Pat was sitting, oblivious and not caring about the tug of war going on around her.

We were there for only about 15 minutes, when the guy made his move. He spotted most of us swooning over his good looks, so he made his way over to us. I was secretly hoping that he would ask me to dance. I really thought our children would be beautiful. We started whispering, “Oh, my God, he is going to ask one of us to dance, I can tell,” and “He’s looking right at me..sorry guys..” Well he was coming our way. He was walking right towards me. Yay! It was me.

But it wasn’t. He stopped right in front of me, his butt almost in my face, and he leaned over and asked Pat if she wanted to dance. Shit. She didn’t care to dance with anyone, and he asked her to dance. Just my luck. So, Pat accepted, smooshed her cigarette out in the ashtray, stood up, and walked to the dance floor with him. The rest of us sighed. I was really hoping he would have asked me.

So, we all turned our attention to Pat and the gorgeous guy, walking to the dance floor. All of a sudden, three other guys appeared at our table. Well, all hope is not lost. We may get to dance, afterall. And these guys weren’t so bad either. The tall, tanned one spoke for his little group.

“We are soooo sorry we weren’t able to get to you girls in time…… to warn you.” Whaaaaat ? Warn us about what?

Well, they didn’t need to explain anymore. They just looked out at the dance floor. All I saw when I turned my head back to look at Pat, was Dancing Guy in the middle of a Toe-Touch…..Oh, look, now he is doing the Robot…Oh and another ToeTouch down into a split….Our mouths dropped open…..Silence…..and then we cracked up. I was laughing so hard I was crying in record time.

The thing that made this so funny, is that my sarcastic, “I could care less about a guy” roommate turned away from the dancing fool to face the band and was just moving slowly to the left and to the right, clicking her fingers. She was so close to the band, that we could hear the lead singer look down and say to her, softly over the microphone, ” What’s wrong, honey?” and the whole place died laughing. She couldn’t look at Gymnastic Boy. She turned away from him and he didn’t even notice it. He was totally involved in his routine. And boy was a routine…Whoa..there goes a spin…

They might as well have had a spotlight on these made-in-dance-heaven- lovebirds. The other dancers, who paled in comparison to the height this guy was getting with his jumps and toe-touches, cleared the dance floor, as to not obscure our view. Now they were the only hoofers on the floor. And he was using the whole floor now. Saturday Night Fever had just come out in the movies, I believe, and so dancing like John Travolta was a must for some guys. Come to think of it, I think this guy had on a vest.

The guys who came over to warn us, too late for Pat, of course, told us that they go to that club all of the time and he was one of their friends. They didn’t have the heart to tell him that he danced like a fruitcake (That’s what we called him all the way home.) After the song was over, Pat rushed back over to our table, which made the place laugh even harder. Ok, rushed was probably not the right word to use. I believe she was like Chuck Yeager, breakin the sound barrier fast. I am not exaggerating when I say that all eyes were on Pat. The clapping was insane.

Pat usually never let anything bother her. She was pretty quiet the rest of the night. She smoked a bit more, and drank a bit more. I think I would be chugging a pitcher of beer if it had been me. Of course, we took every opportunity to re-play the evening. It was a spectacular night.

Fruitcake Gymnast only got one time to do his routine most nights, ya know. No one would dance with him I am sure. But, I never saw him ask anyone else that particular night.

There is no doubt in my mind that if I have to contract some sort of disease or illness, it is going to be skin cancer. It’s just a fact. I totally abused the sun worshipping and then I had to go and do something so idiotic in college, that I imagine a diagnosis is right around the corner.

When I was a freshman in college, circa 1974,we weren’t too bright, I must admit. We were on the loose, away from home and are parents for the first time in our lives. We were little banshees. I think that was especially true for the kids who had very strict parents. I could point them out during the first month. They were really making bad decisions. But, alas, I had no right to talk about anyone after what I let happen.

I lived in a dorm room my freshman year with my roommate, Paula, who went to high school with me. Upstairs, Debbie and Jeri shared a room. They too, went to high school with us. The four of us did a lot together that first year and ended up renting an apartment the next year together. Debbie brought something back to school with her one weekend, and that next Wednesday evening, brought it down to our room. It was a sun lamp.

Ok, I never sat under a sun lamp before. It looked like a make-up mirror, with no mirror. I know that makes no sense, but that’s what it reminded me of. Debbie had us wear sunglasses or goggles and we all took turns sitting under the sun lamp. Except there was a big problem. We let Debbie position us in front of the sun lamp. And we really didn’t know how long was too long. I just remember that it was pretty hot.

The next morning, Paula woke up to use the bathroom about 20 minutes before we were supposed to get up. She had this biological clock going on and always woke up about 20 minutes early before her alarm was set to go off. That always woke me up. Well, especially today when I heard her sort of scream in front of her mirror, on her side of the dorm room.

“Oh my God, Vickie!. My face!!!!” I sat up, still pretty groggy and asked her what was wrong. “My face is so burnt! Come look!” But, I guess I took too long getting up, so she bounced over to my bed, turned my night stand light on, and said, “Oh MY GOD!!!!” I didn’t think she looked that bad. I mean, she was pretty red, and had lines where the sunglasses were, but she didn’t need so many exclamation marks in her voice.

Found out pretty quickly that she wasn’t talking about herself anymore. “Um…Vickie, you better go look in the mirror.” The look on her face was hard to describe. Pity, sympathy, wonderment…something was going on. I got up and walked over to the mirror. What I saw was not me. I am not exaggerating with this description.

My eyes were ok. So far, so good. But, for some reason, they were swollen a bit. Maybe that is because the rest of my face was swollen. Never mind the redness, let’s talk about my lips. My lips were swollen to the point that my upper lip was under my nose, blocking my nostrils a bit. My lower lip was just as swollen and covered most of my chin area. The only thing I could say, and it was in a whisper, was “I look like a Ubangi.” I was shocked. I looked over at Paula, and she looked sick, like I was going to stay that way for the rest of my life.

“Call Debbie and tell her to get down here, NOW.” Debbie didn’t particularly enjoy being awakened so early, but Paula told her it was an emergency and to come downstairs. I just sat on my bed, cross-legged, cradling one of my pillows. Paula still had that, “You are the ugliest thing I have ever seen in my life” look on her face. I looked at her and said, “And so, what were you wanting to tell me about your face this morning?” I felt like the Elephant Man. “I am not an animal. I am a human being.” Except that that movie didn’t come out until 1980. But, that’s how I felt. Like children were going to scream and run away from me. My peers were going to laugh at me. Ok, like in “Carrie.” “They’re all going to laugh at you.” (Damn, 1976…) Ok, you get the picture..

I realized that it was hard to talk when your lips are swollen.I found that I had to take a finger and raise my upper lip up a bit so I could talk. But, that made breathing harder. I was screwed. When Debbie came into the room, I knew what her reaction was going to be. She laughed at me. Like really hard. Paula felt so badly for me. She was burned a little, as was Jeri. Why did Paula and I get so burned? “We all sat under the lamp for the same time”, she stated. I moved my lip up so I could speak, which made Debbie crack up. “Ok, Einstein, how close were we to the lamp? You put the glasses on us and had us sit down in front of the damn thing.”

I wanted to punch her in the face when I heard her answer. “I think you guys were like right up to it.” I don’t know why the idiot didn’t think to move us back from the lamp. First of all, we found out that we sat under it way too long. Well, that was obvious. and secondly, we were right up to the lamp. So, that explains why I looked like a plastic surgery nightmare. Remember the Twilight Zone episode where everyone had to wear masks until midnight and then they couldn’t take off the masks, because the masks became their face? Well, that I did feel like.

Well, I couldn’t go to class, that’s for sure. Paula brought me back breakfast, which I had such a hard time eating. She brought me back a piece of chocolate cake after lunch, which took me a very long while to eat. I told them to not tell a soul what I look like. Yeah, like that was going to happen. Some of the guys on the football team that we were friends with and I was sort of seeing one, were standing below my window for a glimpse of the Elephant man. Great.

I took Friday off and drove home Thursday evening. I had to pull over numerous times because my eyes were burning and watering like I had allergies. My mom asked me “If Debbie jumped off a bridge, I guess you would too, right?” She felt sorry for me because after all, I would have to live looking like this for the rest of my life. Thank God my dad sort of laughed at me. I was beginning to like getting laughed at than the pity, omg, you poor pathetic ugly girl scenario I was getting from everyone.

For some reason my mom didn’t take me to the doctor. I am pretty sure I had second degree burns on my face. My mom and dad had company Friday night, and the people brought their son, who was about 3 years older than me and was studying to be a priest or he was already there, or almost there, because he was a brother? I don’t know what the hell he was, but I do know that I lied to him.

“Oh my goodness what happened to you?” I told him that I was driving in my car and had the window down and someone in front of me had hit a utility pole and the pole fell over and I was burned from the live wires that surrounded my car.

“Why wasn’t the rest of you burned?” he wondered. “Because I had my bee suit on.” I went on to tell him that I had a bee-keeping class as part of biology class and that I wore my suit home because I was running late, but took my head part off, but still had my gloves on, etc. Said it while holding my lip up with my index finger. I am so glad this was a priest/potential priest I was talking to, because I am sure I was pretty darn appealing.

Speaking of a-peeling, my skin started looking like layers of skin on top of skin. I later peeled so much it made for a bed bug feast. There was skin everywhere.

Anywho, I didn’t see the future priest for about a month. I had come home for the weekend and we went to visit them. When we pulled up, priest boy met me at the car….with a wheelchair. I guess he was ready for my next lie. I forgot to tell him I was lying, and his parents told him in the car about the sun lamp episode..I guess he laughed, but thought of a way to get me back. Wheeling me around in a wheelchair,to me, seemed like the joke was on him again…I enjoyed the scenery and stayed in the damn thing the whole time we were out on their patio.

So, if you are going to use a sunlamp, don’t let someone who is a ditz place you in front of the lamp. Just sayin.

Enjoy this story? Jumping in Mud Puddles is now an ebook that you can download on your Kindle. Don’t have a Kindle? No problem. Amazon will let you download their Kindle app FREE…Yes, free. Have a look see. My literary debut….. Amazon.com for $3.99. It’s sort of funny.

When I was in college I majored in Speech Communication and Drama (the first time around) and had to participate in one-act plays and stage productions. One of the big productions put on was Alice in Wonderland. So, my good friend and roommate, Jeri, and I went to try out. When the parts came out, we looked down the list to see what parts we got. We knew we would get a part, because it was a pretty big cast. We were hoping for a big part. Jeri won the role of the Red Queen. I was very happy for her. I secretly wanted to be Alice. I looked for my name. Yeah, there it was………….Vickie Mendenhall…………..Duck/card

I was a duck. Yeah, a duck. And a card. Like in a deck of cards. Wow. This was….such great news. (I am being extremely sarcastic, in case you can’t tell.) I mean, what the hell? A duck? And then, I had to change out of my duck costume, and don a card costume, and then back into the duck costume. Oh, and it gets better.

Our director wanted to use a real baby pig for the part where the baby turns into a pig. She said that she had made arrangements for a farmer to lend us a baby pig, but needed someone to be in charge of doing the switch behind the curtain when it was time. She called out people who were free during that time, and my name was called. Well, I loved baby pigs. I had a pig collection in high school. Some people collect Pez and baseball cards. I collected pigs..Go figure..

Anywho, I raised my hand and said that I would be willing to do the pig switch, despite the fact that I had to be a duck, then a card, and then a duck. I would try to find the time. But, oh my God, there were problems.

After my initial disappointment, of you know, being a duck in a play…in college, I decided to embrace it and be the best damn duck anyone had ever seen…because, I was a professional, damnit…sigh

I had to have a costume made for me. A duck costume. At least my face would show and I wouldn’t be hidden behind a duck head. I did look like a duck, with yellow chicken legs and big feet. The feet would pose a problem in every performance. Meanwhile, the director couldn’t find anyone to take the little piggie home each evening. She didn’t think about that. So, she decided to keep it in her office. Yeah, real smart. Her office smelled like hay and piggie poop.

So, the night of dress rehearsal went smoothly. I decided to ad lib something while on stage both times I was on as the duck and I thought the director would stop everything and yell at me, but I heard her laughing in the seats. Someone who was sitting by her told me she was crying she was laughing so hard. I had to be in a scene with a jury of animals, like a mouse, and I don’t know what other animals were jury members. Some one used pepper somehow and we all had to sneeze, just a little sneeze. But, I made mine last forever, like I was trying to sneeze, over and over, and sounding like a munchkin from munchkinland at the same time. (I really could have been a voice-over for cartoons.)

Another time Alice was passing out candy to animals for some stupid reason and we were just supposed to take the candy and go stand back in the line. Well, I decided to stand there, fidgeting, holding out my hand each time , even though we were in a line, and then I looked at Alice with my eyes crossed and said thank you in my munchkin voice, and the girl playing Alice burst out laughing. Uh, Oh, I was going to get yelled at. But, the director told me to leave it in there for the performances. I was going to be a duck hit.

Well, the performance the next night was filled with some problems. Everything ran smoothly, but only because I am a professional, damnit. After I was onstage as a duck, I had to run downstairs and get the pig, in my duck outfit. And carry the thing upstairs. The farmer had showed me to hold the pig by its back feet with one hand and to put my other hand on its chest. He said hanging it upside down like that would pull on its vocal cords and it couldn’t squeal. Well, that part was true, and the pig did great. We made the exchange each time without a squealing pig behind stage before it was time. But, each time the pig had to run off stage and Vickie the duck had to run after it each time, catch it and take it back downstairs. Then I had to run back upstairs, and change into my card outfit.

Well, I tripped going up the stairs in my duck outfit and landed on my knee. The pain was unbelievable. It hurt so badly and I still had to be a card and a duck again. I was crying some real duck tears. Well, some older guy who was a community member who was some animal (I can’t remember), told me he had a pain pill and that I should take it. So, I did. Yeah, I am a stupid duck. I only weighed 100 pounds and I was loopy for the rest of the performance. I mean, very loopy. I didn’t really know what was going on. He probably gave me some LSD or something….Pyschedelic Duck….perhaps a Disco Duck…

The audience cracked up at my scene-stealing, but I was soo messed up. Then, Mr. Wallman, the old man that our theater building was named after, Wallman Hall, came looking for me. “Where’s that little girl duck?” he asked frantically. “I opened the door to Ms. Lough’s office, and the pig ran out.” Yeah, the pig was on the loose. We didn’t need the piglet anymore that night, and I had to change into a card, so poor Mr. Wallman had to hunt for the piggie on his own.

Well, they didn’t find the piglet for hours afterwards. They thought maybe someone stole it, but they found it sleeping in the costume room, all curled up in a hat. Weird, but not as weird as how I was feeling. I had no pain in my knee until I woke up the next morning. I woke up wearing a robe. I don’t even remember how I got home or how I got undressed. But, when I woke up, my leg was swollen and I was in pain. So, yeah, I took another pill that next performance, but cut it in half. I mean, no one else could fit in the outfit. I had the duck voice going on and people asking me afterwards what I had in my mouth to make me sound the way I did. I was like a Peter Frampton “How do you Feel?” voice changer duck..I had to perform. The show had to go on!

Some one filmed Alice in Wonderland and I wish I would have purchased a copy of it. My kids would see a high duck with ripped yellow hose (which the director loved) parading around on stage looking like….a duck.

I realized after that last performance that I could be an actress if I really wanted to. But, no, I decided to stay in Fairmont, West Virginia, and become a dental assistant for the next four years. Yeah, that sounds much better.

Ok, I have done a lot of stupid things in my lifetime, but nothing as stupid as swallowing goldfish. Yeah, I did. Three of them. Why? Who the hell knows why I do things.

Goldfish swallowing was a fad that first started in 1939 when a Harvard freshman did it on a bet. It received some local coverage, and in the next few weeks, students from all across the country were trying to top the previous feat. It was nothing for a student (mostly males) to swallow ten, twenty, and even 30 in one sitting. Many towns then passed ordinances making it illegal. The fad only lasted about two years. So, how the hell did it appear on the campus of Fairmont State in West Virginia in 1976?

I had a sorority sister who worked part time for the Muscular Dystrophy Association and some one (maybe the Greek association) sponsored a dance marathon titled, “Dance for Those Who Can’t.” Proceeds were given to the Jerry Lewis people. The dance was going to last through the night, with games and activities going on alongside the marathon. Plus, beer was sold in the Nickel, which was our student union, so that was also a plus. So, we danced, we drank, and I apparently swallowed some goldfish.

There was a guy who swallowed one and the crowd went nuts. He was the first one to do it. And it was pretty early, so I don’t think this guy was drunk. Just really stupid. And I think he had people placing bets and the proceeds were handed over to the MD. So, we went back and danced alongside the marathoners and drank some more. You could buy plastic glasses of beer for a nickel, so we had cafeteria trays full of beer for our group of friends. I usually started laughing after 1/2 a glass of beer, so I was laughing at anything that night. I had a sorority sister walk out of the bathroom with a long line of toilet paper walking behind her from one of her shoes. I don’t know why that made me laugh so hard, but she walked like she was all that, and here was that toilet paper following her around. Everyone knew she just peed, so I guess I found that amusing.

We came back after we heard that some guy in our brother fraternity (TKE) was going to swallow two goldfish to beat a rival fraternity’s goldfish record of 1. Everyone gathered around. The person with the microphone stopped the music during a mandatory break for the dancer marathoners, and announced that they had a person that would swallow two goldfish if they could make $200 in the next 15 minutes. Well, college kids usualy don’t have much money, but there were people from the community also there, so the drunk donors opened their wallet a lot that night, I can tell you that. They had $200 pretty quick. And the guy swallowed 2 goldfish. Wow..I was drunk impressed. So much better than watching a toilet paper walker.

Well, a little later, I saw a little boy being pushed into the dance room in a wheelchair. I thought it was pretty late for the kid to be up. It had to be 1:00a.m. He was about 12 and appeared bummed out that he just missed a college student swallow 2 goldfish. It was a Fairmont State college record. Well, maybe because it had never ever been done there before. He sat quietly while his parents talked to the people in charge of the dance and in a few minutes another announcement came over the loud speaker. “Does anyone want to volunteer to swallow a goldfish for our important guest here?” Come on up and lets’ see if we can make another quick $200.”

Well, I saw like 3 guys raise their hands and were coming up from three different directions at a pretty fast clip. I was right beside the little guy in the wheelchair ( I was drunk staring at him) and it was my sorority sister, who was employed by MD who had the microphone this time. Out of the blue, I raised my hand and said, “I will swallow 3 goldfish!” Whaatttt did I just do? No…didn’t even think that I must be demented. I saw the wheelchair kid and wanted to show him that anyone could do anything if they put their mind to it. I was determined to show this kid that a drunk college girl could swallow some fish.

I don’t have any idea how much money was raised for Muscular Dystrophy for my swallowing 3 goldfish, but I had a crowd. I beat the record of 2 goldfish and no one else tried to swallow anymore. Why? Well, there were only 2 goldfish left in the bowl. No one else was going to swallow a goldfish unless a record could be beat. So, as far as I know, I hold the record for goldfish swallowing in Fairmont, West Virginia. If only the story ended right there. It didn’t.

When we got back from the dance, the phone rang. It was a sorority sister, Diane, who lived upstairs from me in our apartment complex, Garden Lane. She had some disturbing news for this drunk goldfish killer.

“Vickie, I don’t want to get you upset, but I think you need to hear this.” I can’t remember her exact words, but she informed me that she knew someone who had swallowed goldfish at Penn State (I’m not sure what college she used), and got very sick when the goldfish didn’t die in the guys stomach. She went on to tell me that somehow the fish lived in the mucous membranes in the stomach lining and then mated. The guy had to get his stomach pumped because his stomach had expanded because the goldfish hatched and there were hundreds of tiny goldfish swimming around in this guys stomach and they kept getting bigger and it was just awful. And I drunkingly (if that is indeed a word) believed her.

I went into the bathroom and shoved my finger down my throat I have no idea how many times, to no avail. No goldfish babies. I was sick with worry. Drunk people obsess about things, and I was no different. But, of course, no one else had fornicating goldfish in their stomach. I cried myself to sleep. I felt horrible for killing poor innocent goldfish. They didn’t do anything to anybody to deserve such a horrible death. I was a crying drunk…I am sure I had raccoon eyes, because I really liked mascara.

When I woke up, we all put “scarves on head” (girls wore those big blue hankerchiefs on their head when they didn’t feel like washing their hair in the 70’s), hopped in my car and headed to McDonald’s. McDonald’s was our cure for a hangover. The greasy food did wonders. When we got back to the apartment complex, Diane and her roommates were coming out. She was smiling. “Almost had you last night, didn’t I?” She laughed. Oh my God, she was messing with me!! I was soo relieved. Now, I wouldn’t have to go to the hospital and ask them to stomach pump baby goldfish…”Oh, you sure did. I almost believed you. That was a good one.” I was one gullible guppy.

I felt so much better.We walked into the apartment and I plopped myself down on the couch. I felt great….. Until on of my roommates spoke.

“I once swallowed a penny and it came out a day or two later……you know……(she pointed to her butt like I was too dumb to understand the digestive system),so….

I wonder if all three goldfish skeletons will come out at the same time?” That could really, really hurt.”